The concept of a less-expensive iMac for those on a budget, perhaps students, is great. However, this is not cheap. Cheaper than the rest of the range, sure, but if you consider more than a thousand bucks to be “cheap,” you might want to consider looking at the more advanced iMacs that are available.

The update of Apple’s iMac range has come less than a year after November 2012’s radical redesign, so it’s no surprise that it’s an internal refresh — Apple’s upgraded the processors to Intel’s newest chips, the Wi-Fi to the new, fast 802.11ac standard, and the graphics cards to Nvidia’s new GeForce 7-series GPUs. Solid-state storage — available as an option when ordering from the Apple Store online — is now PCIe-based, for faster SSD and Fusion Drives.

If you were feeling sad that Apple offered no option for buying a swanky new 21.5-inch iMac with a Fusion Drive, it's time to turn that frown upside down -- and then click your way to the company's online store to order one.

The new 21.5-inch iMacs hit stores last Friday, so you can just imagine how the folks at iFixit spent their weekend -- but in addition to a disappointing repairability score, the latest iMac also comes with a curious secret.

Barely making it under the promised November deadline, Apple has started shipping the slim new iMacs first shown off at last month's iPad mini event -- but the 27-inch model may not arrive until Santa Claus does.

The clock is ticking at Apple, and it's not just iTunes 11 that everyone is waiting for by the end of this month -- Cupertino also promised supplies of the sleek new 21.5-inch iMac models, which could arrive as early as Wednesday.

Own a mid-2011 iMac and already starting to feel the squeeze with your internal storage? The wizards over at iFixit have discovered that last year’s 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMac is capable of adding a second internal hard drive -- and is now offering the tools to do it yourself.

$999 is a magical price point for Mac computers, even though Apple rarely reaches that number. Perhaps that’s why it’s newsworthy that the company has quietly introduced a 21.5-inch iMac model aimed at the educational market -- with a few compromises, naturally.